Accepting the Mark
by Itirpon
Summary: A Kindred origin concept that came to my mind when somebody commented that they wished champions had more depth and development to their back stories.


Accepting the Mark.

* * *

Reaching across an eras-aged table to snatch up a half-emptied bottle, a harpy commented, "And those are the easy problems. We've got some errant youths to correct, too."

This Vastayan's drinking companion was once a minor Demacian hero now remembered for his sacrifice. That he didn't truly die of his injuries mattered only to himself and those living in the farming village now his home. He had been more brawn than brain and the drink didn't help, but there weren't too many young villagers to consider. "The lamb, you mean? That runaway Philip and Richard took in."

The harpy swished a mouthful and gulped it down. " 'You're too soft with her,' I warned them, and everybody, and now look what we've got: A layabout who won't work an hour's labor without complaint. She ducks out to the forest and wastes every day scribbling lousy poetry and the starts to fairy tales she'll never finish, or just 'feeling the lives of the forest,' whatever that means. A seasonal shearing's all she's good for."

Boris sighed and rubbed a tight spot on his shoulder; that meant a storm would soon pass over. "Yavam, some souls don't right fit where their bodies were born. You and I leaving our homelands for here proves that. She'll find her way someday."

"Oh, and at what cost, Boris? That she's old enough to earn her keep, that's one thing. But now she brings us trouble that she finds in the forest."

The Demacian sloshed his drink and then sipped it. "It's just a puppy."

"It's a wolf, Boris. A year-and-a-half old, now. Whatever tameness we see, that's because it's fed and comfortable. And how it's fed, I've seen it make work of small animals in the woods. It's a predator and when it gets the chance, it will, mark my words, take of our livestock. And more, too, as his courage grows and opportunity appears." The tiny cabin fell silent except for a steady tapping of one of Yavam's talons against the table's support.

Boris kept count. Around one-hundred-fifteen, a very distant thunderclap made him lose the figure. "Mind if I finish it off?" Yavam grunted and pushed the remains of their shared bottle his way. "You're probably right, but I think the lesson it'd teach her is worth one incident. What, a couple of chickens or a goat he might get?"

Yavam chortled. "He might take a lamb."

"Depending on which one, that might solve your problem for you."

The harpy leaned back and looked distant. "That's not the solution I prefer."

Boris almost asked which one he did prefer, but he knew that Yavam wouldn't say, had he something in mind. Besides, the drink was drunk and so were they; it was time to prepare for rain.

* * *

"I've found you, and so you meet your end," spoke a woolen girl who'd just plucked a tick that would hope to burrow into her flesh. Her tone floated a little when she spoke, as though it were to an audience gathered around a stage. Placing it on a stone nearby, she took up another rock and crushed it. Although she would have destroyed it and any other pest that might make her its host should she neglect it, here was a special place. What looked like weathered lines once carved in meandering patterns began to glow a faint and eerie cyan. A tick wasn't worth much, maybe a half of an hour, but that would be enough time and light to write by to finish this passage and then she would return to the village as the weather looked like it might turn surly, soon.

The blue glow reflected in the eyes of her companion, a dark-haired wolf that she met not too long ago, although she felt like they'd been together forever, like in finding him her life began anew. He was loath to leave her side and however strongly instinct had grown within him as he matured under her care, he wouldn't leave her for so much as a squirrel without first receiving her command of permission. A squirrel would be nice right now. Plus, bringing a squirrel to the rocks made them glow much more. He noticed her settling in among the stones, leaning her back against the remains of a statue. It was of a grim and imposing man, holding an elaborate ceremonial bow in his right hand and an axe in the other. Those two forms were somewhat distant, however, as the statue had been broken as though somebody had brought a great war hammer against the figure's chest to strike at its heart, but it refused to be demolished and instead fractured down the middle, cleaving into two fairly equal halves. Whenever the wolf brought something significant back, a large hare at least, the blue glow would spread up from the rocks and into the ruined statue. His friend seemed to become inspired to hum merrily every time that happened and he liked that. The wolf came near to her and lay himself beside, listening to her as she scribbled and occasionally vocalized a line to be sure it sounded just right. He grew bored, and somewhat distracted when what she said wasn't an invitation to play together or to find something alive to chase and to catch and to enjoy, but he was comfortable because whenever he was with her, he wasn't lost.

* * *

"Coming back from another hard day's work?" Yavam muttered as he passed by the lamb, he leaving the village while wearing a heavy feathered cloak with the colors of his original affiliation.

The wolf stopped and snarled at him, but the lamb shushed him and bade him to, "Come along. He means nothing by it."

This obvious untruth incensed him more than any retort he could have imagined. He hastened his pace to cover his reaction, as the only thing he would admit she was good at was getting under his feathers. But he did mean something by it, damn it, and since he was headed through a particularly memorable town along his way, he had a number of miles to think through what he would do and what he would need to learn about, first.

* * *

Richard tried to comfort her, but frankly he wasn't sure how. She'd always been somewhat cool to him, in particular as she was reserved around everyone, so to see her in a growing panic left him confused by the circumstance's unfamiliarity. "I'm sorry, I know he means a lot to you, but whatever he got into—"

The lamb shrugged and escaped him, hugging her suffering pet. The wolf had not eaten for days and now fluids too were becoming too much of a struggle. It had tried and still would when presented with something, but it couldn't get anything down; only gagging and coughing up whatever reached the back of his mouth. There was a warmth and firmness to his throat and it made swallowing impossible. She struggled to pick him up. "He didn't get into anything. He knows how to be good! He only takes the animals I tell him he can have, and—"

"And maybe one was diseased! And what if it's contagious? What am I going to do if next week he's dead and you're the one who can't—," he shook his head, "I know what it's like to have a hard time making friends. I was young, once, too. But the thing with pets is they don't live very long even if you take the best care of them. You have to let them go. I'm sorry, but whatever happened, we don't have the herbs or the medicines or the magic to cure your wolf. We just want—"

"Then I'll find one of them." Although the burden she carried was too great for her to make off with haste, nonetheless, she marched away, setting her wolf down only to get the door open before taking him up again and into the woods. She wondered what she would do, for she knew nothing of herbs and all the knowledge of the village had been petitioned, and there were no witches nearby who brewed tinctures and salves. Her and her wolf's plight brewed in her mind, instead, turning into clots of rhyme and scattered phrases. Would that she could write them down, but she had left her book and quill behind. Blindly she advanced till she stumbled and fell. Dropping her wolf, she cried out, but her voice died in her throat as she realized upon what she stumbled: A stone of the ruined monument.

She had learned a little more about it, slyly asking traveling traders and other wanderers who wouldn't contribute to any gossip locally, and put together some bits and pieces of the county's stories that seemed like they might be about this figure. A lonely fellow whose only known passion was for hunting and only known profession was carving. Perhaps he made this figure of himself? For practice, or for company? Or, for a magical purpose. Indeed, as the wolf came to rest upon the stones, the grooves began glowing again. The lamb whimpered, terrified, since this must mean either he was dead or dying. The glow expanded, reaching every stone including others more distant that she never knew were part of the formation.

Her jaw quivered. "Wolf, please, don't leave me. Don't leave me like this. You've never abandoned me, not when you were hungry, not when you were scared by the lightning, never once have you strayed. Stay…"

The tracing lines spread around into a winding spiral across the soil, the glow becoming faintly ambient. The sounds of the forest changed, most falling silent and those that did not beginning to echo. "It is time for him to be taken," she heard spoken in a hollow, dispirited voice. She looked up but saw through the trees only one bright star, the first of the night, perhaps. "You can help him to go. Take my axe and put him to rest."

She glanced at the half of the statue which held such a weapon. "He came to me when I felt most alone, when he was alone. I won't cut him away."

"He suffers with every breath he takes." Indeed, they had grown quite shallow.

She gripped the wolf and pulled it against herself. "And I will comfort him through every one of them."

"You suffer with every breath he takes," the voice added, "how much would you give to allay this suffering you share?"

The wolf moved a little, struggling to look toward her, and tried to whine but it was more of a squeak. He sounded like a mouse that not long ago he would've begged for permission to pounce upon.

Other legends had spoken of mysterious beings who would grant boons for tributes. No such tale accompanied what she had learned of this ruined statue, but one glance at what this place had become would convince anyone that it was a place of magic. "I have nothing to give. All that I have is lent to me."

"You have much to give, little Lamb," the voice whispered, "already, during your visits to my physical remains you have given to me two things which in life I always sought: The lifeblood of prey well hunted, and peaceful companionship that offers whatever it minds and accepts whatever is offered without thought or care for recompense. Shall we continue to share our company?" The lamb cradled her wolf as he twitched gently in her arms. She kissed his nose, giving it a touch of moisture that meant nothing, like one drop of rain amid boundless desert sands. "Will you take my axe and end his suffering, will you take my bow and embark with him on my hunt, or will you do nothing but think of how to write about your indolence in the moment of your friend's death?"

She looked at the statue's halves, wanting to look it squarely in the face, but unsure which half to prefer. "Still I have nothing to give! What would you have of me?"

The magic circle brightened and a new set of spirals formed, doubling the existing pattern. "Agree to my terms. Your friend has been poisoned, and with a poison I know well, for I planted the herb in this part of my hunting grounds so no quarry would feed nearby, becoming accustomed and offering little sport. He is marked for death, and he will die, but offer to him half of your spirit, and he will remain connected to you evermore. Then, you who have been lent all that you have, lend to me the other half of your spirit, so that I may leave this statue that I foolishly bound myself to in my hope to elude the death that I brought to all that I hunted, and carry on my hunts with your friend at your side. My expertise, your compassion, and his savagery, as one we shall become a complete huntsman. And, just as we have been together with every visit you've made to this place, we'll never know loneliness again."

She looked a the half that held a bow, and despite her love of poetry, but for a few half-spoken words, she could not form a reply. The wolf fell limp and exhaled one last time.

The glow shifted from cyan to a golden hue. "I know the magic needed to preserve him, but it will last only a moment. Take my bow and seal our covenant, or say goodbye to him and go home to whatever you've been lent."

Gently laying upon a glowing rock the mortal remains of her friend, she nimbly hopped over some of the rubble and seized the bow. Unsure what to expect, it broke from the rest of the stone like a branch from a dying tree, and its grooves glowed in a pattern that crawled across its surface toward her grip. A dull and ominous hissing sound filled the air for a few seconds before rising in pitch and then fading away.

Again she heard the voice, now certainly as though it were in her own mind. "Bury your friend's body. It is now useless." Using the bow to break into the soil, she began digging. The hole took quite some time, but she muttered not a single word of complaint. When the work was done, she heard the voice again.

"From a village of farmers, you dig like a stranger to working the soil."

The lamb inspected her fingers where some of the flesh now blistered, but her thoughts were on the future, not the immediate past. "Our agreement, will I be hearing your voice evermore?"

"For a time, you will hear my voice. But as we now are, you will soon not hear it at all."

* * *

Boris brought the bottle this time, so he selected the topic of conversation. "At least she's doing something that counts as a trade. You should be happy, Yavam. Your scheme worked."

The harpy's reaction was overwrought, a gasp that was nearly a cry of the bird his legs and his cloak suggested he could be. "What scheme?" He poured for himself. "You heard what the medicine woman said, the wolf must have eaten of something that killed him."

"Must have, yes. But how? Which of our foods might also be poisoned? If only I knew that it was a unique case, Yavam, but because it is a mystery, we should stop eating anything that the wolf might've eaten. No meat from the forest, and nothing from our gardens, we'll spend all of our money to buy food from—"

"Oh, shut up, Boris. Fine. I poisoned the wolf. I spoke with an herbalist when I traveled and I learned of a plant that would kill him, and one that can be found nearby so an accident of his own could be blamed. Damn you and your schemes, you would order that we waste our food just to test your suspicion, wouldn't you?"

Boris walked outside for a moment and returned with two carrots from the garden beside it. He wiped the soil from one on the sleeve of his shirt and took a bite. "The people trust us, Yavam. I won't expose you, but if we can't be honest to each other, we don't deserve our rank."

Yavam hated carrots, and accepted it as a taste of Demacian justice. "The people trust us to keep them safe. I will, even if it's themselves I keep them safe from."

"Do you think that she feels any safer, now? Now that she's lost her guard dog, now that she's withdrawn from everyone?" Boris nibbled his carrot, tiny bits to make it last longer. "One of the craftsmen reported some tools going missing. I spotted her working on something in the woods near that pile of rubble close to where the old well was. She was a layabout, now she's a petty thief; unless she sneaks it back when she's done, of course."

"Really? Could you see what she was making?" Yavam couldn't believe his ears, that the lamb might be putting effort into something productive.

Boris rubbed his shoulder. "A mask of some sort. I've heard of death masks and funeral masks, but this worries me. It's the right size for her to wear, shaped like her dog you killed. That worries me. It's not sensible. I knew she'd take it hard when the dog—"

"Wolf!" Yavam interjected, "Not a dog. There's a difference and you know it."

"Yes. I know the difference is in if you can trust it. But this isn't about that wolf. You never trusted the lamb to train it right, like you wouldn't trust her to do her chores. You never saw that what she needed was a project of her own, not a task around the fields. Give her a goal, and she's relentless."

Yavam stood from his seat. "I guess that's why she never quit with that poetry even though she never finished a thing." He shoved half of his carrot in his mouth and snapped it in half with a jerk of his hand.

"Hmm. And why I'm letting her get away with borrowing the tools without asking. I only hope she gets it out of her and gets back to normal. Even if 'normal' means more unfinished poems."

* * *

Some people whistle while they work. Philip's adopted daughter hummed, and sometimes sang. She had a gentle voice, even when she was not in a gentle mood, but after a while, he needed a break from it. "Hey there, little one. It's been three hours and you haven't taken a break. Didn't I warn you about working too hard?"

The lamb who sat on her bedding inspected what she had wrought: another mask carved out of some wood left over from other projects to add to the pile of tries. It was getting easier and it looked more like the image in her mind, but still it wasn't quite right. "Yes, you did. Yavam would say that's your original sin. What do you think?" She raised the mask that she held over her face.

Philip sat on the bed beside her. "I think it looks, well, a little spooky. I know you miss your wolf, but, is this the right way to remember him?"

She reached among the practice pieces and held up one of another design over his face. She smiled, but only for a second. "I don't need to remember him, now. He's waiting for me to do what I must."

"What's that going to be, kid? Make a perfect mask?"

"I must make the masks that he wants me to make. He showed them to me."

Philip took one of her hands up in one of his own. "Well, well. If you're getting a vision, it must be important. I hope you make them just the way he wants them. But don't wear them all the time, or I'll never get to see you smile. Yours come and go so quickly I can't blink without—there! I caught that one!" he nudged her with his elbow but that drew more of a smirk, instead, "your smiles are like fireflies: I only see a flash and I never know where to look to see the next one."

She glanced over the mess of flaked wood that she had made so carelessly, not considering that no matter how she might try to clean them away, surely a few would evade her efforts and worm into her wool in the night. "Is it okay to you, that I decided to become a hunter?"

"Well, well you see, it's a bit of a surprise, since you spent so much time wanting to be a poet or a storyteller, but I told Dick long ago that there was something in the forest that was calling to you, so I'm happy that you thought of a way so you can do some good work and be where you're at your best. Well, at least Yavam will be happy if he lets himself; maybe after you start bringing home fresh game every day."

In response the lamb spoke so faintly that Philip leaned in while she said it. "I'd like for you to be happy, but I don't know if that's the kind of hunter we're going to be." She fitted the mask that she had shaped like a wolf's visage over her face and looked into his eyes through the mask's round holes.

Philip took up the other mask that she had held up to him, one shaped somewhat like the visage of a lamb. It was shorter and let his smile show beneath its bottom edge. "You know I never was the one to discipline you. Just the one thing: if you don't like what you're doing, remember that you can choose to stop doing it."

She was glad that she was wearing a mask. It obscured her wince when she heard the statue's voice in her mind, "But you won't choose to break our oath."

* * *

In the dead of night, when all should be counting sheep, one wanted not to be counted at all. But a broom had been laid askew and upon it she tripped as she tried to sneak back what she had taken. Although she thought that she should flee and try again another night, she was advised, "What you're doing now will not be reported on." With the wood- and stone-working tools replaced, her escape seemed assured, but a figure, half shadow and half lamp-lit entered the workshop.

"Come back for more, have you? I may be old, but this is my workshop, and now, you're mine, too!" barked the old fellow, the retired master who had taught a half dozen journeymen now masters in their own right. Being without half of his teeth due to age, his bark was now worse than his bite. He stormed in as forcefully and as intimidatingly as a man reliant on a cane to move could, and when he reached the center of the workspace, he dropped his lantern. It fell on the sand floor, packed solid by years of footprints, and became a little pile of broken bits and a small fire that illuminated the room slightly. The amber light it cast, however, was but a candle held against the glow that started to appear in the darkness, tracing thin lines around the limbs of an interloper.

"Can you sense it in him, little Lamb?" asked the statue's voice, "The corruption that grows in his body, that has taken from him half of his vitality this year and will soon claim most of the rest. Can you feel what pain he will suffer?" The lamb looked at the master craftsman, then, she looked into him.

In the darkness, the figure hinted at by blue lines gave its observer a focus, a pair of eyes, circular and glowing like the burning splash of oil on the floor, but flickering and blue like the hottest of flames. The glow seeped around the edges of a mask that contained it. "I know you," the craftsman said with cautious hesitation, "my great-grandmother told me of you, that wicked magician, but I never thought," squinting his eyes, he realized, "and what you've done to the poor girl. What have you done?"

"If you know of us," she asked, "you know that it's your time to decide." She felt like she were being fed lines, but that made her uncomfortable more because they weren't quite in her personal style than that they weren't wholly her own.

The man turned, facing away and then back at the glowing eyes. "No," he said, a few times, each with different inflection, "I still have something to do." Stumbling and fumbling with his cane, he started away.

The voice now whispered, "He has made his choice. Give the command."

"Go, Wolf!" she shouted as she pointed at the old man. A purple ghost with burning eyes behind a mask of its own burst from a sudden shadow about her hooves and lurched forward. His last effort was to reach for a door he would never again touch. The lamb's eyes narrowed behind the holes of her mask as she watched her friend tear at the craftsman, first at his pajamas and then at his flesh. "No," she said as she shook her head, "this is not right."

"He made his choice, he chose to run, he chose to be pursued," the voice replied, its tone growing forceful, excited, and eager with each statement.

The lamb rushed forward, gripped the ring that protruded from the center of her bow, and pulled it back, causing the bow's strange material to bend and a glowing shaft to form as the ring drew back. "He made his choice, but he made a mistake. I forgive him. I absolve him." She released the ring, and the arrow of glowing energy took flight, piercing the man in his chest.

She took a few steps forward to stand over the body. Her friend drifted away and circled around her while the arrow evaporated as its energy dispelled. "All will leave behind a work unfinished. Rest in satisfaction."

Again she heard the statue's voice speak. "Is this the compassion I never knew? I wonder what it means for us."

The fire on the floor finished its fuel and died away. As darkness advanced, the little lamb asserted, "It means never again will you decide if it's time to take someone. I'll decide." She removed her mask and her friend vanished like a puff of smoke. Stepping over the corpse, she entered into the still night air.

"Very good, little Lamb. Because soon enough," the voice began to change, "should I decide, should you decide," to sound like her, "there is no difference at all between us."

* * *

When the evening of their regular meeting came, both Boris and Yavam each brought a bottle. Stuff that was stronger than their usual selections, too. Each had been holding his tongue for so long, to stop took a moment to loosen the cramped, overworked muscle that held it fast.

Boris broke the ice, wishing that he had some for his drink. "It was a nice funeral. Everybody had something really nice to say about him."

"Oh, yes. Especially the village poet. She had a lot to say, and she put everyone under a spell with her words. Did you sense it, Boris? Did you feel it as her voice floated up and down in pitch, musically, mockingly? She planned it all so well."

Boris closed his eyes and groaned. "We've gone over it every day since it happened, Yavam. You sound like you're trying to make a scapegoat of the sheep with this."

Yavam squared up his posture in his seat and leaned over the table, using his forearm as a support. "Then we go over it again! She went into the workshop to steal again, the old man wasn't to be taken for a fool twice, she kills him and if we don't act she gets away with it."

"Enough, Yavam," Boris complained, "He might've taken her behind the woodshed with a switch for using the tools, but taking a life to cover up something so petty and so obvious to anyone who thought about how she got to be making masks? No, that is senseless. But, you do ask a good question about the bow. She had it before she started carving things, so she didn't make it. And it doesn't explain the wounds. One of those vicious wolves you always worry about, one of those could do that to him, but not a lamb on two legs or four. And if she were there that night, had she her wolf he might've been saved by it from whatever monster did that. No, it's easy to see. A wild creature went in the workshop, he always kept some food in there so he wouldn't have to leave when he was deep in his work. He follows it in, it attacks him and he drops the lantern and fights it with his cane. It runs away and he tries to get out but it's too much for the sick old man and he's terrified that his heart stops beating."

Yavam scowled at Boris. That story fit the evidence but the evidence didn't fit the story. "I asked the workmen about the tools. They counted them all, everything was there the next morning. Where was the lamb? She was unseen till midday, and said that she had gone out in the night to practice her hunting."

"And we ate well that evening, thanks to her. A shame he wasn't there to share it."

The Vastayan started tapping the table's leg again. "Can't you see it? The day before, the lamb has the tools, the day after, the tools are put back. When did she return them other than in the night? It's murder, Boris." The tapping continued while Boris contemplated.

"She would need a powerful wolf at her command to maul a man like that. And even if she had another wolf, unless she taught it to be that way—"

Yavam slammed his fists against the table. "Enough, as you like to say! This is a matter of justice and peace, two things you swore an oath to preserve."

Boris hummed like a deep growl brewed within him till he rubbed his shoulder and exhaled deeply. "The people of our village pity her a little. First, to preserve justice, let us find evidence that proves beyond question before we convict her. Then, to preserve peace, I will do what I must."

Clicking reigned for three minutes while Yavam sipped his drink and Boris stared at his own glass. Then, the clicking stopped to be replaced by a talon scraping against the grain. "And if another man dies to provide that evidence?"

The Demacian could have heated his drink with the intensity of his gaze. "Do what you must to stop that from happening, but I won't be wrong again. And I won't wear the laurels of a hero with the blood of an innocent on my hands."

Reaching up to squeeze his chin, Yavam shifted his body, uncomfortable in his chair, now. "I think I understand why you gave up your career." Boris didn't so much as blink. "But don't fool yourself and think that an error on one side will balance one on the other." He stood, stretched, and as he left the table, reached over and rubbed Boris's shoulder. "I'll do what I must. Rely on me in this matter, my friend. It is time that I paid you back for the things you've done for us all."

* * *

Richard yawned as he approached. "I think that mask is turning you into a wolf, my girl. You're practically nocturnal, now. Most of the day, we're trying to keep quiet while you saw a cord of logs."

The lamb was packing a few small things into a bag for her next hunt, although each time she brought fewer things. Truly she had all that she needed, but field dressing was required for her quarry to be of any use to her village. "Are you saying that I snore?"

He chuckled. "No, but you do hum a tune for a while somewhere around an hour after you hit the sack. What I am saying is that we're starting to miss you even though you're here."

Inserting her mask last, she slung the strap of her bag over a shoulder and took up her bow. "If you want me to, I can—"

He shushed her. "We can see that you're happy, now, and that's most important to us. But don't have so much fun out there shooting down the owls that you miss out on other things."

She thought about it for a while, and almost asked what those other things could be, because nothing in particular came to mind as she remembered over recent years. That past felt like somebody else's life viewed from afar. She looked into his eyes and wanted to suggest something, something worth missing some sleep for, but when she looked at him that way, all she saw was that it wasn't yet his time. The voice in her head tried to say something distinct from her own thoughts, but it had faded too much, and with a nod and a hum, she subsumed it at last. "When I'm out there, I feel like that's what I've been missing out on. But if you and Philip think of something, let me know." She gave him a peck on his cheek, and with a skipping stride, left their cabin and entered the night.

As she passed the forest's perimeter she donned her mask. Its eyes lit up, faint lines coursed about her limbs, her companion emerged from the ground she pranced upon, and distantly she felt the lives of the forest. One in particular, a great buck, almost halfway to the next village, felt strong, agile, and fast. "Wolf," she began, "are you hungry, tonight?"

"Always!"

She almost stumbled because he had never before found words with which to answer her. "Then let's challenge ourselves tonight. Can you sense what I've noticed?"

He orbited her a few times, making confused noises at first. "Yes. Yes! I want that!"

"Deer are sure to flee, dear Wolf. He will be yours to take."

She halted mid hop, landing on one hoof and turning to her side. She sensed someone nearby and looked around. Behind some trees at her left—

"Forgive me," Yavam called out as he proudly emerged, since no use could come of trying to follow in secret, now, "for being late. I wanted to join you on your hunt this night, but you set out a little earlier than before." Wolf snarled at him as he approached, as always. "I was wondering what your secret was; how a girl who could hardly handle a dinner knife so suddenly became a better bowman than any archer we've ever had supplying our meat during my time here. But I see already there are greater secrets to learn about you."

She listened closely, expecting that nagging voice to arise, but she heard nothing in her mind. "You can't hunt as we do." Her carved visage vanished as she spoke, for Wolf eclipsed her during an orbit.

"Yes, right now I can only imagine. Please, little Lamb, show me. I can't wait to see the truth with my own eyes."

She looked around carefully, craning her neck slowly from side to side. "We can show you. But," she reached up and removed her mask. Wolf vanished like a layer of sawdust against a forceful exhalation. "I want to hear the truth with my own ears. I know that you were helping to investigate it, who hurt my wolf? Who made him die?"

Yavam felt a chill wash over him, as though it flowed from her mouth on her words, entered by his acutely angled ears, and flooded through his blood vessels till reaching the tips of his talons. A muscle in his right arm twitched. The look in her eyes—now visible only by a tiny speck of reflected moonlight upon an eerie blue glow that created faint, foggy accents about her body, especially where some strange lines like scroll work now appeared as subtle seams in her wool—was more terrifying now than when the scintillating illumination like tiny fires in the mask's eyes obscured them. "What my investigation revealed was that he was poisoned by somebody who wanted to protect our home and judged that the life of a wild animal was not worth as much as the life of a villager or any of our livestock."

She began to sniffle in the darkness and that reflected moon vanished when she blinked and then wiped at them. "If you ever look that somebody in the face, tell him for me, that the wolf was lost and alone in the forest, and he was found and taken in, and he wanted nothing else but to stop being an outsider and to become a villager in all of your eyes, too. Just like somebody I once knew did." She bowed her head and when she lifted it again, it was part of the same motion that put her mask back over her face. The tiny flames boiled away her tears and the wolf reappeared at her side. "Did you bring a weapon so you can slay the monster that you are hunting?"

Although he hesitated for a second, with a motion faster than a lightning strike, he drew and brandished a dirk that he wore concealed beneath his feathered cloak. That same moonlight traced the arc and highlighted its razor sharp edge, serrated teeth and all. The wolf reacted with a noisy fury, quelled quickly when she put her hand upon his floating form.

"May I?" the hunter asked of Yavam. He flipped it in the air, catching its blade safely between two fingers and offering its handle to her. She examined it under the glow about her and mentally called to the huntsman for guidance, but only when she asked of herself did she find it. "You're a patient one. But you will find your place and your purpose, like we did." Less adeptly, she handed the blade back to Yavam, sideways and resting on the palm of her hand. "My mark has been ignorantly wandering, alas farther and farther by the minute. You are welcome to take whatever you like this night, and to follow me or not as you choose. Come, Wolf," she shouted as she turned her back to Yavam, "the chase awaits us."

Wolf gave Yavam one more accusing look before trailing behind his companion. Yavam smelled differently than he did when they met before, both alive. He wasn't running away, but he smelled like prey on the verge of flight. "Little Lamb," he began asking, "this one, can I—"

She interrupted him. "Tonight is not a night to ask him that question. The time will come, dear Wolf, and when it does, so shall we." The wolf grumbled a disappointed complaint.

Yavam holstered his weapon and followed behind them, keeping about ten strides distant. The wolf kept looking back at him and it distracted him enough that he forgot himself and his supposed mission of finding quarry of his own. Their trek took them in a direction unfamiliar to him and he began wondering if she were plotting against him. Indeed, she stopped as though she had found the perfect place to be, and hummed nonchalantly till he surrendered the gap between them.

She faced in the direction they had walked and spoke when he neared. "A third of the night is gone and you haven't stalked a single creature. 'Woe upon he, the hunter who can't focus on his prize. For such a wretch can never…' uh, hmm, I thought I had something going there. We've passed by many animals a sneak like you could have taken unaware, so I wonder what you are here to hunt."

He dare not say. "If I hunt tonight, I hope to take something worthy to rest beside whatever you claim. But if not, I'm satisfied to see this young prodigy at play."

"No, that won't do. If you want to see through our burning eyes, you must join us in more than just body." She quickly seized Yavam by his throat and the patterns of blue lines brightened, coursed about her arm, and then into Yavam's flesh like an onrush of snakes.

He gripped her arm to resist and second guessed his choice as the wolf snarled and hissed emphatically: He should've tried for his dirk and cut at her, instead, perhaps. And, what magic was this that felt almost soothing, warming, yet cold as a tombstone in winter?

The wolf's noises changed in Yavam's ears, "…him to be like one of us? I don't like him! Mark him, hunt him, take him, little Lamb!"

She released her grip and Yavam reached for his neck as though to restore the hold but under his own control. Rubbing at it, he coughed, "What have you done?"

"I have opened your eyes, and now we will show you the truth. Can you smell it, proud Bird?"

Yavam sniffed at the air and there was something to it, but he could not discern what over faint notes of lanolin and something else in the air, being left in the air by the ever-circling wolf. "No. What do you mean?"

Wolf spun and turned to face Yavam, "Blood in the air!"

Lamb added, "Blood on his hands."

The glow of Wolf's eyes intensified and he drifted near to Yavam, "And something else?"

Yavam glanced at them both and guessed nervously, "Blood at, uh, hey! You're the poet, not me."

"Tell me again, proud Bird, whom do you hunt?" the lamb asked of Yavam.

His hand moved just a little, just in case he needed his blade. "I'm hunting a murderer."

The lamb laughed, and quite loudly, yet not even the faintest echo returned from the body of the forest. "Then your trophy tonight may excel beyond mine. I sought only to let my friend enjoy his turn. Come, dear Wolf, proud Bird; we are hunting a murderer."

Lamb bounded forward, changing direction a little from where she had been heading before stopping. Yavam kept behind them but not as far this time. Whenever he gazed past the girl with a faint aura keeping her visible to him and the glowing eyes that penetrated the dark fog in which they were embedded, he sometimes felt something attracting him, something distant, something guilty.

"Do you remember the trader who visited your village, offering all of his plowshares for one good sword because he feared a highwayman?" she asked apparently to break the silence as they traveled.

Yavam needed a moment to respond; her youth, her agility against obstructive terrain, and the length of their path exacted a toll on the aging harpy's endurance. "I heard the rumors. Before he came, when I was doing business in other towns, I heard of them. That's one reason why I had my blade sharpened during that trip."

"Do you have it, yet, Wolf?"

"Yes, yes! It is much stronger, now!"

"Then go, Wolf. Lead us to our destiny."

The ghost gave a delighted howl and rushed ahead. The lamb picked up the pace, and the bird sighed as he fell back to the distance he once intended to remain at. When he caught up again, the lamb was writing down something and the wolf hovered against the ground near her hooves, rotated at an angle like any other bored dog half-asleep.

After Yavam stumbled and fell over a patch of vines, she clapped shut her notebook and stowed it in her satchel. "No finer example could I have dreamed of." The air here stood still, suffused with an aroma of rot. Wolf floated about the scene: A traveler's wagon, sundries of little value littered the ground. The harness was broken and the beast of burden that pulled it, long gone. In the seat, the remains of a merchant now ruined by visits from winged scavengers. Would anyone care to check they'd find the body having been robbed of whatever valuables it once carried, except for a recently bought sword that did the man no good. That was left behind like a symbol of futility.

Yavam covered his face and inspected what little he could see in the moonlight. Just another ambush, and another life lost to the hunters of men. "Fair huntress, you disappoint me. Our chase leads to a path turned cold, and putrid, two days and one night ago, I figure."

She giggled at him, like an adult giggling at the antics of a child. Given their comparative ages, this irritated the harpy, doubly so: Once for the insult, and twice for him realizing he let her get under his feathers again. "This is not our quarry! This is the beginning of the chase. Proud Bird, you call yourself a man of justice. You say to us that you're hunting a murderer. Here he was, and where he's gone you must go! There is blood in the air!"

Wolf shouted into Yavam's left ear, "Blood on his hands!"

She almost danced as she approached him and asked, "Can you smell it, proud Bird?"

Despite the stench of this place, he took a slow, deep breath through his nostrils. Resisting the urge to retch took all of his strength, and then he turned his head. "Yes, yes, I can. That way," he said at almost a whimper's volume.

"We go!" the wolf asserted as he pressed himself against Yavam, shoving him in the right direction.

The harpy felt a queer energy within him, one that sealed away his tiredness and concerns. There was only a hunger, a need, a guiding drive to move as fast as his feet could carry him. The wolf giggled little growls and the lamb hummed a haunting but soothing tune as the party traveled as one.

Once the foulness passed behind them, Yavam and the wolf kept a fair pace, with the former truly following the latter, although he felt like he were as much following the trail as the other. It led to a spot that made itself visible with the deep orange embers of a campfire soon too cool to glow. Beside it slept a man in poorly fitting clothes but of finer quality than those worn by people who often sleep outside. That man awoke to a terrible vision, one that inspired him only to ask, "What are you?"

"Tonight? We are a vindicator. We've seen your work, and we've followed you here. Now, you may choose. Will you stand and face me, or will you run from your fate?"

Slowly the man rose and looked about, wondering about her use of 'we,' but seeing only dangerous darkness. He didn't risk turning his back on her to see behind the tree against which he had slept so he listened for a moment. He heard nothing, not even a cricket. "Those are some strong words coming from your gentle voice, young lady. What are you, really? A witch of some kind? I won't run, and I won't just stand, either. Witch or demon, you won't be my first. I choose to—." He interrupted himself mid-sentence for a tactical advantage, bursting forward while drawing from his belt a hexdrinker that had supped the fluids of a hundred kinds of monsters in its time. But its enchantment offered no protection against the speed of a Vastayan harpy lurking in the darkness, and Yavam thrust his pristine dirk through the highwayman's side before he'd passed half of the distance between where he slept and where he thought his next victim would fall. Indeed, the lamb arched herself backward and briefly performed a handstand to make way for the highwayman's body to fall upon where she had stood.

Coming upright again, the wolf returned to her side, having lurked above the campsite in anticipation. "I wanted him to run. I should have woken him up!"

Yavam withdrew his dirk and observed the fresh blood as a black but shining shadow streaked across the blade under moonlight, with little forms, lumps of the highwayman's innards, clinging to the weapon's teeth. It had been a long time, and he admitted to himself, it felt good. But he had not been tried, no evidence presented, no consensus agreeing to this fate for him, and worst of all, his action, his reaction was to save her, the very one he would put to the blade, were he able to meet the right conditions that would free him of his conscience. The highwayman's question now stuck in Yavam's ears although he would never speak again.

"Well hunted, proud Bird! Your first was easier than mine. I had to come to terms with it, that the old craftsman had only a season or two of pain and suffering ahead, but also that I was reckless and took him too soon. But I understand it now. You've redeemed every murder this one committed, and changed to be later the times that will come for those he would've met in days to come. Would you like to come and hunt with us again?"

The harpy tightened his grip on the dirk. "So, you did murder the old man. You admit it."

"In that moment, our motivation was not my own. That has changed. We now see clearly."

"I can't ignore what you've done."

"You can't ignore the weapon that you hold, what we've done. The craftsman brought good into this world; this highwayman, only bad. But both were alive, both died, and both at our hands, and for a reason. Think of when you struck at him, what was your reason?"

"I struck because—" Yavam needed to think about it, to remember it, and to find words. When he did, they were the most honest he may ever had spoken, "because I had decided that he should die for what he had done, and I would wait only for him to do anything that would justify my killing him." They were so honest, they felt like the words of somebody else speaking through him. Then, he remembered the spell she had put on him, and wondered if understanding the wolf's words and sharing the sense of the trail were only part of this strange connection.

"When I let Wolf have the craftsman, I had agreed that his time would be soon, but the circumstance caused me to react—like you did, tonight—and that reaction was not justified. I'm sorry for that, but it is a mistake I can make up for only by not making it again." She started to walk away and raised her left arm to beckon, "Come, Wolf. You've waited patiently for your turn."

"I have!" Wolf shouted with relieved frustration as he followed her, "Proud Bird is too slow! He ruins the chase. I don't want him with us, anymore!"

"The spell ends at daybreak, and he did not yet ask to join us again—" her voice faded from Yavam's ears as they departed into the woods once more.

Yavam listened as the animals of the night started to speak again, no longer hiding from the terror that passed them by. He wiped the blood and gore from his blade on the clothes of the fallen criminal and worried. However belligerent this man was, what if he wasn't the murderer of the merchant? What if the lamb decided his time would come early, as she had the craftsman, and tricked this proud bird into doing the deed to put the same sin on his head as rested on hers.

He turned about. It was a long walk home. If he continued on in another direction, another village would be nearer. Then again, he had a lot to think about. As day began to break, a strange feeling came into him, one of blood lust and adrenaline, one that made him want to run faster, toward something that he had to have, and then he was gripped by an impulse that almost suffocated his consciousness for a moment, a moment of absolute fulfillment. But it passed within seconds, he began to feel hungry and anxious, and that lasted till the edge of a rising sun cast a ray of light directly on his body. The curving lines traced upon his body flashed and faded before his eyes as he examined himself, and after looking around in all directions twice, he felt completely alone in the forest.

* * *

"You really should have some," Boris advised Yavam with his mouth full, "it's the best venison jerky I've ever tasted. And we have plenty. Didn't she say that it was just a remnant of what she brought down? It must've been the size of a horse." Yavam had his elbows on the table, cradling his forehead in his palms. Recently, more nights than not he struck this pose and fell silent. Despite Boris's attempts to get him talking, he rarely spoke more than one sentence at a time when in this mood. "Come on, little birdie, aren't you at least a little part vulture or something? It's good!"

Yavam glanced up at him just to roll his eyes.

"What more do you want, then? You said you wanted to convict her and needed evidence, I agreed that if we found it, we would; now you just drink, avoid the people who care enough to ask about what's wrong with you, and this sudden bout of vegetarianism? It's not a problem in the gut is it? I remember what my uncle went through—"

"Oh, Boris. If you understood what I saw and felt, you would lose your appetite, too. If for nothing else, for the things that—that that monster brings out of those woods."

Boris gnawed on his treat like a delighted dog. "The girl who used to hide her face behind a book and hunted rhymes, now hides her face behind a mask and hunts elk, and you call her a monster?"

"Maybe not her, not the girl with the book. But there's a monster there, and it's no less than inside her. I know, I felt it when it touched me, some nights ago when I went out with her."

Boris repositioned in his chair to strike a pose of dramatically intent listening and sipped some of his drink. "Oh, now this is interesting! I'll admit I've wondered ever since she came of age who would be the one to follow two shakes of that lamb's tail!"

To that, Yavam sneered and continued, "She realized I was stalking her and invited me to join her—stop giggling, Boris—and she, or whatever is inside her, put a spell on me. Already I could see the ghost of her damned wolf, but after that was done, I could hear it speaking; it has a voice now and one as vicious and horrible as I knew that cur would grow to become!"

"A powerful spell, yes, to make you see visions of ghost wolves. Are you sure you did not take another kind of herb for yourself while you got the one to poison that pup with?" Boris asked, again with some jerky in his mouth.

"Oh, not so loud. If it would take away this headache, I might swallow the herb that would be my last swallow forever." Yavam reached for his drink and while he lifted the glass, they heard a rapid rapping upon the door.

Boris offered to answer it. "Farya?" he asked whomever he revealed in opening the door. The lantern which served the cabin's small but main room could not reach this far but it was bright enough to deprive Boris of much of his nighttime visual acuity. However, his question came with a disbelieving inflection, as the eyes of this caller had a faint blue glow of their own, not much brighter than the lantern and moon's light combined that outlined a bit of her face and hair, but it was there.

"They're fighting again. Can I come in? I don't want to be alone right now."

Boris welcomed her with half of an, "Uh-huh," and shut the door behind her.

Yavam looked up from the table, dreading that the voice he just heard was the one he thought that it was, and started to dissent. "Hey, meager as it is, this is the village council's chambers. Only councilmen and their booze allowed!" He winced as his own volume exceeded his tolerance for the moment.

"Nonsense," Boris said to gruffly dismiss that. "Before you came to our village, this was our hunters' lodge. Our little lamb has taken up the bow so she has the right to rest here." He gestured toward a stool set aside, since it had been a few years since the table accommodated three. As she sat and stood her bow against the table's edge, he warned her, "But one rule is that when we sit here, we drink." A third glass also needed to be found, but for the sake of expedience, he emptied his own at once, sat it before her, poured a few fingers' worth, and retained the remainder in the bottle for himself. "It's terrible stuff. I'd say it would put hair on your chest, but you've always had us beat."

Forcing himself to sit straight, Yavam suffered to present a facade of strength in her presence. "It's about time for you to get sheared, isn't it?"

She ignored him and looked at the alcohol, muttering, "Another thing I'm lent," before she took a sip. Yavam caught that comment but Boris's ears lost their sensitivity due the din of blasts in battle. The fluid gave a contortion to her face that none had ever before seen on her, and that she had never before felt. "I now know what 'terrible' means. I need to change some of my poems, now. I underestimated it."

Boris took the bottle that Yavam brought and restored her drink's water line. "He likes sweeter stuff, maybe a little sweetness will fit you better. But, yes, people seem to be underestimating each other a lot these days. At the heart, that's often what the arguments between Philip and Richard are about. It's been over a year since they had a row. Do you know why they're at it again?"

Daring another sip, it wasn't much better, but the distraction it caused on her tongue was in a way welcome. "No. I was ignoring them and trying to write till they got too loud. But by then they were talking their own language and I didn't want to be there anymore so I left."

Yavam poured plenty for himself, since likely the rest of his would be poured for her should he leave it be. "I'm surprised you didn't go hunting. That's what you like to do, isn't it? Hunt something down? Hunt someone down, maybe?"

She looked squarely at Boris. "I will hunt when it is time, and I feel like there will be plenty of times. Right now, I just wish they would stop."

Boris knew her plea well, and although it came less frequently now, he learned from futile efforts before that getting between them only made their disputes last longer. "They will, little Lamb. They always do. But not tonight, we can be sure. Instead, let's make do with what we have, and we have a new lodge member. Tell us about yourself, mysterious huntress who wandered in from the forest."

Taken aback, she glanced at Yavam, whose stare could extinguish a candle, and perhaps was trying to suffocate the eerie cyan glow that hid behind her irises. "I'm just someone who found a bow in the woods and I like using it."

Yavam shifted to rest his head on one palm, still nursing the ache but giving his pose more of a bored and disappointed look than one of a suffering man. "You sure do, and adeptly, too. You must have practiced a lot before you let us know what you were really doing out there."

She sputtered a few denials of having long practiced with it, but Boris interjected, "I'd like to see your bow." He caught himself early in his sentence and shifted his vocal tone a bit, realizing that he was sounding a little too much like an enforcer of the law wanting to inspect evidence. She picked it up and offered it to him. "Hmm, what? This feels as heavy as stone and no less stiff." The design confused him, too, having a thread that seemed as thin as one strand of spider's silk and a ring attached in the center by two cords that sank into the body of the bow. "How does this even work?"

"I pull the ring back so it touches the string, and then some more, and then I let go." She took another sip and watched him try. And try.

He stopped his effort when he started to grunt, "What's the draw strength on this? I can barely get it to budge." He lied: It didn't budge at all.

"I don't think it will work for anyone who isn't a hunter like me." She looked around the room and Yavam noticed that the glow in her eyes brightened a bit, and some marks on her long, pendulous ears started to show the same glow, too. "I can show you if you want me to."

Boris passed the bow back. "Please, do."

She rose from her stool, reclaimed her bow, and stood on her left foot. "Beside that trophy, see the horsefly?" When they agreed, with a smooth but rapid motion she pinched the ring with the digits of her left hand, drew it back and away while shifting into a half-crouched position, and released it. Boris's eyes grew wide as the bow folded back, nearly in half, and a nearly-white bolt of energy formed between its lengths, which flew forward and struck the wall, although that it hit the fly was not clear for a moment, till the bolt faded from existence and the dead insect it pierced fell to the floor. "It works like that."

Yavam groaned because he knew he was about to make things worse for himself. "Look, Boris," he pointed at the bug, "that's not normal, and, and that!" he pointed at the markings on her body now glowing noticeably. "That's not, too!"

"It's okay," she said as she sat again on her stool and adopted a dejected tone. "A bug won't last long. It'll fade and I'll try to be normal for you."

"Forgive me, but I won't make any bets on that," Yavam replied, "Normal wasn't your thing before you became a murderer."

Boris grunted; his inquisition had only begun and the bird had blown the whole—

"I miss him, too," she whispered. "I used to go to him when they were fighting. He would make cocoa for me when he could. But when he saw us, he spoke to the huntsman; the one who made my bow. And that's who spoke back, and I wasn't strong enough because I didn't understand, and it was too late too soon. I shot him so he would go gently. He was so gentle. I miss him."

Yavam started clicking his talon against the table leg. "Is that admission the evidence you need, Boris?"

The Demacian reached over and gripped Farya's left arm, near the elbow. "Tell me and tell only truth no matter what: Who is that huntsman? Who made your bow?"

"In the forest, there's a place with a statue of a man divided in two. He held two weapons and my bow is one of them. His spirit spoke to me and he helped me to keep my wolf's spirit with me, but his came into me, too." She reached to lift one of her ears, putting it on display. "That's when I got these marks, and why they glow when I hunt something down. He hunted things and gained their power and now I—," she hesitated and finished off her drink, "I like who I now am, and if I could do it again, I would only change the when, I would have waited till his disease made him suffer enough that he would want to die easily and painlessly."

Boris's grip slipped away and fell limp at his side and he glanced at Yavam, who looked ready either to explode or to collapse. "You aren't making this easy or painless for me, little Lamb. What's happened to you, this possession, it could mean you aren't responsible for what you did, but these words you speak, that you'd do it again, is that this huntsman talking or has our ewe strayed too far from our flock?"

She shut her eyes and sniffled. "He was in control till after I'd obeyed our agreement and let Wolf after him. But what I saw happening, what I saw Wolf doing to someone who didn't deserve it or truly choose it, that's when I took over. Everything after that, I'm responsible for." Her eyes opened a little and their deep seated glow, however dim at the moment, stood out amid the lantern's light. "Including helping the proud bird bring justice to the forest."

Boris looked to Yavam, too, and asked if there was something he needed to admit, too. The Demacian felt more like a man of cloth than a man of law or a man of war as he had been in the past.

Yavam contemplated for a minute and wished he had brought something stronger than sweeter. "When I followed her out and we 'hunted' together, we didn't hunt game. We hunted down a highwayman; the one we heard about from that trader. The trader was a few days dead, and together we redeemed him."

Boris became angry, mostly because it was the first time in a long time that Yavam dared keep such an important development to himself. "So, you've known about all this and all you've done is complain and drink? You were the one who wanted me to arrest her as soon as you suspected that she committed a murder, and now you've seen her at work and—"

The lamb interrupted. "No. I didn't kill the highwayman. Wolf didn't, either. Nor the huntsman, whatever of him remains that isn't part of Wolf or myself, now. We killed him because, for that night, Yavam was one of us."

Boris looked at both of his drinking companions and then at the dead horsefly. "That's what you meant when you said she put a spell on you, is it?"

Yavam stood and tried to walk around, although between the liquor and having sat long enough that his legs had gone half numb, he staggered at first. "When she put those marks she has on my skin, I could feel them. I could sense things but it wasn't clear, that she was leading me to somebody, that the wolf was distracted by a large deer he was promised, and someone or something else. I think I understand what she means by the huntsman, because I heard him, only for a second, but I acted on what he told me to do without realizing it, and I stabbed the highwayman."

Boris now took a thoughtful pose, his chin on a fist not unlike how Yavam sat awhile. "So she was controlled when she killed our craftsman. And," he turned to the lamb, "you think that you're not controlled by that spirit anymore?"

She nodded forcefully enough to cause her ears and hair to sway. "I'm in control, now. He wanted to be, but that wasn't our agreement. The huntsman gets to hunt through me, and my wolf will always be with me. That's our agreement."

"Where is the wolf, now?" Boris asked, "Yavam said that he saw him, but what he described, I don't know if I believe what he said."

"He's here, in one way. I could put on the mask and let him take shape, but he doesn't like Yavam."

Yavam had wandered across the room, not too far, to a closet and dragged out a simple cot to lie upon. It was little more than a frame with some slats and a repurposed sleeping bag, with four pegs to serve as legs once inserted. "You don't owe me a favor. Besides, the way my head feels, if you wanted to do me a favor, you could kill me. You'd like that, I'd bet," he concluded as he flopped onto the sack to moan without needing to worry about keeping his balance.

Boris's eyes flicked to his right, observing the lamb's flesh while not turning his head to give that away. She didn't seem to react but the lines glowed in a pattern for a few seconds; "Were you well and not in this stupor, the huntsman would revel in pursuing you as his quarry. So would my wolf, for the chase and the revenge." Then, the markings faded again.

"Would you, little Lamb?" Boris asked.

She got off of her stool, picked up her bow, and with a hop and a vault bounded from the table to land her left hoof on the nearest corner of the wood frame cot, perched over Yavam with her bow held forward. "Not more than any other worthwhile target. And to take him would mean what could become a fine huntsman himself would be lost." He didn't seem to react to her at all, although if he had passed out or merely lacked the resolve to react was unclear. She stepped down and approached Boris. "I feel a little better, now. I think I will go hunting tonight. Would you like to join us?"

Boris rubbed his shoulder, but more for distraction than for an ache. "I think Yavam has the right idea and he'll be fine, here. I'm going to go drool on my own pillow for as long as I can."

She smiled but only for an instant. "Are you going to dream about bringing me to justice?"

"If what you've said is true, that you were coerced by this spirit, then it may truly have been an accident, or beyond your control. But the things you've told me, I don't know. I would have to if I had evidence to show a court, but all I can show is a girl who's good with a magic bow that doesn't need arrows who's been accused and needs to be exorcised, not incarcerated."

"Maybe. Alright, thanks for letting us visit." She clasped his arm with her free hand and kissed his cheek. "A boar," she exclaimed, releasing her grip to raise one finger and point it upward, "we haven't seen one of those in weeks." A smirk grew across her lips and she shivered as though a giggle exploded prematurely within her, "One might be hard to find, and Wolyo will enjoy that." She drew from her small bag of gear her mask as she approached the door. Wearing it, she looked back at Boris while the marks on her body lit up and a soft blue glow appeared in various places around her wool. The wolf emerged from her shadow and nuzzled against her hair. "The hunt continues. It always will." She opened the door, began a wordless song, and exited into night with her companion following after casting a curt snarl at the limp heap that was Yavam, leaving Boris behind to find his way on his own.

* * *

The village was perfectly sized to support a particular custom: to lump together all the celebrations—birthdays, anniversaries, et cetera—of a month. This allowed a whole day to be set aside instead of fitting events into the daily work, and it meant that a standing order let them have nice cakes from a larger town for all the guests of honor instead of having to send someone out every week or two or having to see some do without due to bad timing or misadventure. Speaking of misadventure, the order was perhaps off by one, this month. One of the celebrants went from "Happy Birthday" to "In Memory Of." This made Farya's presence, which had always been awkward when she showed up to these functions at all, a nexus of unease. Yavam wasn't the only one to suspect her right away, and although neither he nor Boris had shared her admission with or without noting the influence that she was and to some extent continued to be under, some of the older folk who remembered old tales retold the ones that spoke of unnatural conditions, like developing markings that sometimes glow. Exorcism and more drastic measures had been suggested by a few of them to Boris, but he reluctantly held to his conviction: Only on proof, not hearsay or theories, would justice stand. He knew he was stretching it to include self admission when she who admitted also heard voices in her head at the time, but his self respect demanded that he not commit again the folly that long ago caused him to find his way here.

Although the rule was that each guest of honor cuts and serves his own cake, in the case of the deceased—today, the old craftsman—another would be nominated to the duty. Quickly Farya was nominated and seconded: First by Yavam, who claimed that she was probably the last person to speak with him; an opinion he could not support with evidence but that others nodded in cold agreement with. Second, by Philip, who had always suggested that she accept this month as her unknown birthday month since it was when she was discovered. She had always declined after the first time; claiming that she didn't like the fuss, but truly she was embarrassed by the ephemeral attention—all these people gathering and eating cake because she happened to have been living there for a year, pretending to celebrate but walking away and having nothing much to do with her after every slice had been consumed—she wanted to do something worth being celebrated for. Among the gifts that Philip got for her that year was her first notebook. She still had it, leaving the last page blank for a special occasion.

Today didn't feel like one. She focused on cutting the memorial cake into the correct number of pieces as evenly as she could and handed them out as the queue passed by, not looking up, humming as she worked and not responding to those who brought a tricky comment to her as they reached for their shares. A few people had complimented her on her bright blue eyes before she swore her oath, and they spoke with greater admiration now, claiming to find them more beautiful than before. But everyone else avoided eye contact with her if she didn't, these days, and were it for her transformation or for their valid suspicion of the deed it led her to commit, it was easier to just keep to herself and let her daily socialization be satisfied by her regularly providing a share of their hunt's bounty.

The second round of cake was in honor of both a birthday and engagement, and brought a far more convivial mood to the assembly. Light and playful varieties of alcohol were poured, discussions became speckled with laughter, and Philip smiled when a few quick turns of phrase and interjected puns saw even his little lamb finding a place in the moment, although when she clapped dead a nuisance wasp that was buzzing around, the consequential sudden illumination of the mark she bears cured any forgetfulness of who she was and what she had become.

Round three was in honor of a young man. In years past, when they were much smaller, Farya and he played together a few times, but his mother didn't want him spending too much time with one from the inhuman races and a clash of their personalities had kept them on amicable but distant terms. However, whenever he served the cake in his honor, he always pointed out that he was ensuring she got one of the slightly larger pieces that inevitably resulted from the cutting plus any spare frosting that had fallen aside. So, when he handed her a piece and said, "And, one thing extra," she anticipated some of the blue striped frosting that would match the change in her appearance that so many had spoken their thoughts upon. But instead of giving her some of that, he reached aside to discard the serving spatula and to take up a proper blade. "For my grandfather!" he shouted, and lunged forward, aiming for her heart. The little lamb leapt away in a backwards somersault and landed perched on the picnic table immediately behind herself in a crouched pose, her right arm extended, somehow with bow in hand and mask on face. As for the birthday boy, a white bolt of energy protruded from his neck and blood spurted in a long arc as he fell behind the remains of his cake.

"That was reflex! He attacked me!" she shouted plaintively, but over the immediate commotion few heard her words. Most of the villagers stood back and shouted. The wolf emerged from a swirling dark fog that briefly formed around her hooves and he made a noise like a grouchy yawn. Yavam spouted some curses and Boris drew his sword. She looked around and knew that all hope was lost. Yavam charged in upon her and she cried out, "I'm sorry," before putting a bolt in his thigh and ordering her wolf to keep everyone away, but not to kill them. The ghostly wolf charged at any who felt heroic enough to advance and all fell back except for Boris who struggled against but mostly endured Wolyo's bites as he clambered over the tables and benches. He heard her shout as he cleared the last of them, "…you forestalled it before!"

He leapt down with a shout that caused the lamb to turn and face him. She winced as his blade came upon her, but it struck the edge of her mask, fracturing it beneath its right eye but otherwise only knocking her aside. He took two steps to stand over her—

"It's not his time," her strained voice moaned out as she got up enough to be bent over on her knees.

—and finish her off—

"…not…" her lines glowed not blue; rather, golden.

—but hesitated as she slapped the soil and bellowed, "…today!"

The golden lines shot out from her body and coursed over the ground and took the forms of magical glyphs seen only on scrolls and artifacts kept hidden away or presumed destroyed. Her wolf came to her side and dipped low to lick at her face; within the influence of her spell his form changed, still ghostly but able to manifest his body in whole, although his tail remained a trail. The glow crept over all four while the white bolt dispelled from the boy's neck. A trembling noise reverberated within the circle and the glow brightened beneath the shade that centuries-old trees provided with their broad overhanging limbs. The energy gathered and flashed, and then it all was gone. No lines, no sounds, no glow. Even the lamb's light was extinguished. The boy gasped and reached for his neck. Blood stained his clothing and the soil on which he had fallen, but the wound was now only a red mark befitting a nasty bruise at worst.

Once the shock of this revelation wore off, Boris sought the lamb, and saw her, a distant figure of fleece disappearing into the forest, her wolf's head leaving a quickly fading trail in the air behind her. He lifted his sword to point it at her—a gesture he used back in the old days as a parting shot at anyone who escaped him—and because it was an old habit he did it with his bad shoulder's arm. When he realized this he also realized that the shoulder no longer ached. He rubbed it, and wondered if this would be the last time he'd do so.

* * *

The only thing worse than a two-bottle night was a zero-bottle night. Yavam's wound was at least a clean one, since the arrow removed itself without ripping any flesh on the way out. He clicked away at the table's leg at nearly double time. Boris deliberated in his mind and sometimes complained aloud at the facts of the case. Much of the village wanted the lamb's blood both for the craftsman—whose murder being that nearly everyone now agreed upon having seen her in action—and for the boy, even though at trial Farya would prevail: The blade that the boy used had a ragged and poor edge which did not cut the lamb's flesh but did snag some of her wool; ergo, that she acted in self defense would be recognized. That she used her strange magic to preserve and heal him could not be ignored, either. He stood from the table in the little cabin and swung his sword around, fighting memories of enemy soldiers as they were seconds before lubricating that very sword with their blood and bile. Not a stich, not a prick, not the slightest pain. Boris felt like he could battle against men a third his age and prevail with his shoulder's injury removed. Returning to his senses, he first found Yavam absent before finding him beneath the table.

"I think I did some damage to your woodwork," the harpy admitted before emerging, feeling the patch that his claws had over the years turned to a mess of sawdust and roughly hewn splinters. "But I guess that's not what you're ready to worry about right now."

Boris sheathed his sword and reclaimed his seat, and with the room now safe from any potentially wild swings of that sword's edge, Yavam sat, too. "This girl of ours has discovered something amazing. And with it she found her purpose. Most nights, she alone brings back more for our larders than our two best hunters can bag, combined."

"But," Yavam crowed.

"And this power to protect and to heal; we've lost good people to injuries because we couldn't help them or get them to help in time. She's good with books. I'd sell my sword and buy her whatever ones she needed to become our next medicine woman."

"But," Yavam repeated.

"And she said that the old man would soon suffer in his age and die painfully. Knowing that fate before it comes, that's valuable. Those she can't save, she can warn to prepare."

"But," Yavam chirped.

"And you know, she's fearless of highwaymen. We would do better in trade if traders weren't afraid of the journey out here."

"But," Yavam peeped.

Boris hung his head. "But she killed one of us, and almost another, and even though the first might have been an accident, and the second she was defending herself, it doesn't matter. The people won't forgive her. The people won't accept her. She can't stay. And if she tries… ." Boris muttered what remained of his statement.

Yavam heard and understood enough, but could not help but to ask, "Boris, why does this weigh so heavily on you? You once were an enforcer. Even here, you were the unyielding pillar of justice. But for her, you became soft, and when we needed our enforcer, you held back. I've taken my place in this village as your second and I've tried to advise you and support you when you needed it so your strength would never seem to buckle. So to do this, I must be told, why?"

Boris got up and left. He was gone for some time, and when he returned, he brought a bottle. Yavam waited patiently the whole time, till after pouring their drinks and consuming half of his own, Boris began. "It was a chaotic brawl. Lines had broken, half of the men were fighting on instinct and reaction. I was in command, I had to set the standard of behavior. I led my men and we were recovering order. Then, another skirmish started nearby when the enemy broke through a barricade with a small band of men. I brought some of my own and—," he took one sip, "—I ran through one of our own men. He was a spy, and a son of one of the nobles. He came through with the others because he wanted to find safety and probably report something that would help us win the day. I ran him through. In the heat of battle, all I saw were the colors of the enemy. The fight went on and I couldn't stop seeing his face as he died on my sword. I'd never killed an ally, someone innocent, not in far worse conditions than that. The sun set and I had to get away. I had to get out before I broke and all my men might lose their nerve. I gave myself a suicide mission, assigned my best subordinate to take over, and went in. I became a hero that night. I became a nameless coward that morning. After walking a lot, I found this place." He refilled his glass. "She could be our hero, our champion, but the stain of that blood won't wash out of my uniform or out of her wool. She has to go somewhere else and leave her name behind, just like I did."

Boris got up and left.

Yavam drank from his glass and frowned, wishing it were something sweeter. "Why couldn't she have gotten a normal dog?"

* * *

Philip, who had been sleeping alone in his cabin, awoke to a dreadful sight perched upon the foot of his bed. "Well, my little lamb, what is this power you've found?" he asked with a nervousness in his voice.

"I don't know," she carelessly spouted. "Like everything else, it's been lent to me. But I think I'll take it and try to hunt down something; something of my very own. And if I can't, I'll always have my friend."

The wolf had been hovering directly behind her, but having been mentioned, he then performed one slow orbit.

"That sounds like a long journey. We're not going to get to see you again, will we?"

Her gaze lowered. "One time more, that I can assure you, if you want me to." Philip agreed without thinking, and she sighed. "But, you must promise me one thing, and make Dick promise, too." She held out her open palm to her side, and Wolyo immediately moved to glide against it, drag the back of his form against her hand and arm, and drift against her side. "Promise that when we come for you, you won't run."

He responded with a laugh that fell faint as he realized the implication. "Well, I'll never run from you. Who would run from their own kindred?"

She removed her mask so he could see her smile, and genuinely, not merely a flash of emotion or a bit of social protocol. "Only a fool. Only a fool who didn't realize that she had them all along and would bring them pain and, and death before faithfully trusting them with the care of her spirit." She dropped her bow and mask as she leapt down and threw herself into the rising arms of her adoptive father. "Thank you," she whispered, "you gave me everything, and I'm sorry I can't give as much back."

He held her tightly, squeezing and inhaling a note of lanolin. "You've given me something I never thought that I'd have. Now, go. Give life to those who shouldn't lose it, death to those whose time has come, and chase to the beasts of the forest. And try to finish some of your poems, too."

She took up her bow and her mask and donning it, her permanent companion with a caress beneath his chin. "I keep forgetting how I want them to go. But if I don't forget you two, that's okay. Poems can be rewritten. People only live once and when their time comes, they're gone forever," she tensed up, "except in my memory." She stepped backward for a few paces, raising her left hand to wave goodbye to Philip, who raised his likewise, but then blew her a kiss. She rushed out the door so her sobbing would not be the last he heard of her voice, till the day she would come for him.

Countless trees passed by as she ran.

The wolf's trail grew long at such speed. "I'm hungry. I want to chase something down!"

She recovered her composure, as not to give him cause for concern. "Then let us hunt. What would you like, dear Wolf?"

"Anything. Everything!"

She managed a brief giggle for him. "Then have it. Let all things be yours to take in their turns. But which would you like to take first?"

The wolf thought for a moment, and lost his place. "Does it matter?"

"No, dear Wolf. It doesn't matter at all. All things should have their time, and we will be there whenever one of those times come."

The wolf laughed and snapped his jaws in anticipation. "I hope it's soon!"

Without breaking stride, or even noticing, they passed over the rubble of a ruined monument made of ancient stones. The rocks had meandering grooves carved into them and some pieces had been fashioned into that of a human figure, but Nature was at her work and would in years to come reclaim it all.

"Little Lamb! I'm bored. Tell me a story until we find something to chase."

She didn't need long to think of something. The poet spoke through her effortlessly. "Okay. Long ago in a forest like this one, there lived a tall, pale man, with dark hair on his head and an intense loneliness in his heart…"

* * *

Resigned to their home being occupied by one spirit fewer, Philip and Richard spent a little time dealing with what their little lamb had left behind. Most of the things were of little consequence, neither too personal nor particular to matter how they were disposed of. But one artifact stood out among them: The first notebook in which she worked at her writings, given to her so long ago. Philip opened it up and found the last page to be marked in a much more refined hand than the childish scribblings on all the pages before it.

On it, she had written a few lines into a poem. It was an awkward piece with lots of w-sounds that quickly turned to a number of scratched out drafts of lines, as though the page were fighting back, refusing her accomplishment till it repelled her completely. At the bottom after a gap, one brief paragraph was punctuated with a rounded ripple of a tear now dried away: "All will leave behind a work unfinished. This one is that of whom I once was."


End file.
